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Rodney Dangerfield

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His success was assured when he told his very first "no respect" joke: "I get no respect. I played hide-and-seek, and they wouldn't even look for me." Dangerfield would also tell conventional jokes in his act: "I grew up in a tough neighborhood. Tough neighborhood! Teachers would get notes from parents saying, 'Please excuse Johnny for the next 5-to-10 years!'" Dangerfield became the surprise hit of the show. Some of Dangerfield's material was unabashedly silly, but with his stop-watch delivery, it hardly mattered. "I used to date a girl from Buffalo," he would announce. "Why can't I meet a girl with normal parents?" He would inform his audience, "I asked my wife 'is there somebody else?' She said, 'there MUST be.'"

Invariably the butt of his own jokes, the disrespect began with his parents almost at birth, continued through schoolyard taunting by classmates, followed by failure in the dating scene, right up to his insulting wife.